Thursday, November 13, 2008

Way, way back at the beginning of this century, I used to be a professional cook in Los Angeles. I cooked in some pretty fancy places with some pretty fancy people. And I was pretty good at it, if I may say. I would happily spend days simmering a stock into demi-glace. I cheerfully sliced bushels of carrots into perfect little matchsticks. I prepared three sauces to dress a single dish.

That was then.

Oh sure, I still love to prepare expansive feasts with fabulous ingredients and high-falutin' techniques. But in the intervening years since my time in the restaurant business, a few things have changed my priorities: marriage, law school, and parenthood, to name a few. So while I always crave well-prepared, delicious food, I have had to re-align my expectations and priorities. Working full-time means that I have limited waking hours to spend with my son and husband, and I don't want to spend all of that time waving my son out of the kitchen. Necessity has bred a few culinary inventions that I thought I'd share for others who find themselves in my shoes, so I'm incarnating a new feature for this blog called "Get it on the Table." Tonight: Spinach Fried Rice.

This recipe relies on several frozen foods that are staples in my home: frozen basmati rice and frozen spinach. I get my frozen rice from Whole Foods, but my operatives in other parts of the country tell me it's available all over. (Of course, you don't need to use frozen rice or spinach if you have cold, cooked rice and raw spinach lying around.)